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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
50 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Detailed behavior information on 25 common birds.,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Guide to Bird Behavior, Volume 2 (Stokes Nature Guides) (Paperback)
The Stokes have produced a book describing the behavior of 25 birds. The catagories of information include: visual displays, auditory displays, territory, courtship, nest-building, breeding, plumage, seasonal movement, and behavior at the bird feeder. The 25 birds covered in this book include: Killdeer, Spotted Sandpiper, Mourning dove, Belted Kingfisher, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, Eastern Wood Pewee, Barn Swallow, Tufted Titmouse, White-brested Nuthatch, Marsh Wren, Cedar Waxwing, Yellow Warbler, Eastern Meadowlark, Brown-headed Cowbird, Northern Oriole, Scarlet Tanager, Northern Cardinal, Rose-brested Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, Rufous-sided Twohee, Chipping Sparrow, and Field Sparrow. This is not a bird identification book and the illustrations are not in color. Bird Behavior is a facinating book about why birds do the things they do. Donald and Lillian Stokes have provided a new way to look at birds.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Information to Better Understand Your Feathered Friends,
By
This review is from: A Guide to Bird Behavior, Volume 2 (Stokes Nature Guides) (Paperback)
The Stokes Guides to Bird Behavior are great little references for backyard bird-watching. You may have to wander a little further than your backyard to observe some of these species, but the birds in your neighborhood are probably in one of the three Stokes volumes. Each Stokes Guide to Bird Behavior features 25 common North American bird species. For each species, the authors explain visual displays, auditory displays, territory courtship, nest-building, breeding, plumage and seasonal movement, and provide a calendar so that you can clearly see when these behaviors occur. I wouldn't take any generalizations about bird behavior too seriously because many birds are very individual, and their behaviors and social customs vary accordingly. But these books will give you a good basis for understanding and predicting the behavior of your avian neighbors. You'll enjoy watching your little feathered friends all the more with the added understanding the Stokes Guides provide.
My one complaint about these books is that the bird species are not in any particular order, and neither are they indexed. If you look at the table of contents you will see that the species are not in alphabetical or any other order, and there is no sense to which birds are in which volume or where they are placed in the book. In other words, you have to read through the entire list of 25 species in the table of contents, in each book, to locate the species you want. I have no explanation for this, and I made an index for the books myself to save me from the frustration involved every time I want to look up a species. That is the reason I gave the book(s) 4 stars instead of 5. In Volume Two: Killdeer, Spotted Sandpiper, Mourning Dove, Belted Kingfisher, Downey Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, Eastern Wood Pewee, Barn Swallow, Tufted Titmouse, White-Breasted Nuthatch, Marsh Wren, Brown Thrasher, Wood Thrush, Cedar Waxwing, Yellow Warbler, Eastern Meadowlark, Brown-Headed Cowbird, Northern Oriole, Scarlet Tanager, Northern Cardinal, Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, Rufous-Sided Towhee, Chipping Sparrow, and Field Sparrow.
5.0 out of 5 stars
focus on common, everyday birds,
By Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall "Dr Stuart Jeanne B... (New Plymouth, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Guide to Bird Behavior, Volume 2 (Stokes Nature Guides) (Paperback)
If you enjoy watching the the behavior of common birds you see everywhere (sparrows, crows, pigeons, chickadees, blackbirds etc - 25 are described in all) you will really love this book. Unlike other field guides, which seem to focus mainly on song birds, Stokes writes in detail about the common birds you are likely to see in your yard - describing all the little variations in their song and rituatualized movements they use to communicate to other birds. He also describes which birds are social and live in flocks - and even roost together - as well as providing a calendar describing the time of years specific behaviors are most likely to be seen.
I was really quite pleased to learn that Stokes finds sparrow behavior among the most interesting - because I honestly think they are the most comical birds because of the strange stuff they do. You can have a whole group of them invade your yard and start hopping around and chirping madly - but as Stokes points out, it's always a single female with a bunch of males trying to get her attention. He also talks about how the male typically will build a nest before he starts advertising for a female (this is a high pitched - extremely irritating chirp - that, as Stoke points out, gets more and more intense the longer it takes to find a female). Stokes also describes the strange items (cigarette filters, bits of plastic insulation, etc.) male sparrows use for their nests - and how they are very persistent. If they decide they want something for their nest, no matter how big it is, they never give up trying to jam it in somehow. I was also relieved to learn that it's fairly common for mallards to force themselves on females. We had some males on Greenlake in Seattle that would gang up 2-3 at a time trying to copulate with a female - with some female ducks being drowned. We thought the bread people were feeding them that was causing this. However apparently it's normal behavior. I learned interesting facts about other common birds from this book. For example robin courtship and mating has never been fully described because apparently they are very shy and won't do it when people are around. By Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall, author of THE MOST REVOLUTIONARY ACT: MEMOIR OF AN AMERICAN REFUGEE
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